WWF buys WCW from Turner

CBC Sports · March 23, 2001

The World Wrestling Federation is buying the ailing World Championship Wrestling business from AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Turner Broadcasting System Inc., ending an intense rivalry that has inflamed professional wrestling fans for more than 20 years.

The purchase "creates a tag-team partnership with the World Wrestling Federation brand that is expected to propel the sports entertainment genre to new heights," Stamford, Conn.-based WWF said in a statement Friday.

"This acquisition is the perfect creative and business catalyst for our company," said Linda McMahon, chief executive of World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc., whose Monday night Raw is War show is the top-rated program on U.S. cable TV.

Turner had been looking for a buyer for the troubled WCW, which lost an estimated $80 million US since last summer.

A deal with Fusient Media Ventures, a New York media investment company, fell through after Turner decided to stop broadcasting pro wrestling on its networks.

Neither company would discuss terms of the deal, although people familiar with the WCW's business said the prime asset WWF is acquiring is an extensive film library dating to the 1970s, merchandise and some production and exercise equipment.

The WCW grew out of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in the early 1990s.

"We think the WCW has found its proper home now," Turner spokesman Jim Weiss said.

The WCW had planned to stop production after Monday night's event in Panama City Beach, Fla.

WWF, which also owns the XFL in a partnership with NBC, said that new WCW programming will air on U.S. cable TV's The National Network in the near future.

They could join WWF stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker and Chyna, who posed nude in Playboy last year.

Throughout the 1990s, the two companies battled for ratings and popular success as fans often favoured one before returning to watch the other.

But in the late 1990s, as the WCW's performers aged and its talent-development efforts lagged, the WWF began to regularly trounce Turner.

The decision to scrap pro wrestling marked the end of a 30-year era for TBS.

It was one of the first major programming decisions made by Jamie Kellner, Turner's new chief executive.

He assumed control of Turner when AOL Time Warner merged the company's channels -- TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, the Cartoon Network and all of the CNN networks -- into the WB network. Kellner helped establish the WB in 1993.